In the serving of food to the patients, provision must be made for serving cooked food that is intended to be hot, really hot. If this is to be accomplished successfully, it must have special attention and special facilities. If there is no diet kitchen or nurses’ pantry on each floor, and the trays are prepared in the main diet kitchen adjoining the general kitchen and sent on the dumb waiter, it means that plates must be heated thoroughly and every article of hot food covered with a hot plate or saucer. The food must be really hot when served on the plates, and delay at the other end of the line guarded against. This method is the only one that can be pursued in small hospitals, or where mistakes in construction have resulted in there being no facilities for serving food convenient to the wards. It is hardly necessary to say that each tray should have on it a ticket bearing the name of the patient for whom it is intended. Neglect of this precaution might cost a life, as for instance if a convalescent typhoid patient (famished with hunger as they usually are in that stage) who was allowed only custard or broth, had served to him a tray laden with fruits, meats and vegetables. Such accidents are not unknown, and may happen in any hospital where laxity about the serving of food exists. Where there is provision on each floor for setting trays and serving food the same care needs to be exercised about heating the dishes. The food will be served in bulk from the main kitchen, usually in large covered vessels, which should be hot before the food is put in. A steam table in the diet kitchen will suffice to keep them hot till the serving is completed. In winter it may even be necessary to heat the cups, for what is more insipid than a cup of lukewarm tea or coffee? Equal care needs to be observed to serve cold things really cold. Ice may be a luxury to some people, but the free use of ice in a hospital is an urgent necessity. Not only is it needed to preserve the food, but it has its place in adding relish to a meal especially in hot weather. When a patient is hot and restless and uncomfortable even the clink of a piece of ice in a glass is refreshing and will help to create a desire for the milk itself. It ought not to be necessary to add that cold food should be kept as far as possible from the hot food on a tray, and yet having more than once found a nurse carrying a tray with a dish of ice cream covering a bowl of steaming hot soup, or the butter crowded as close to the teapot as it could be, it may be that such reminders are not out of place. If only everybody lived up to the best they knew; if only one could be sure that what was taught would always be acted out, the housekeeper’s anxiety about the serving of food would be greatly lessened. As it is, “line upon line and precept upon precept” is needed, and in addition that “eternal vigilance” that is said to be “the only price of safety.” [Sidenote: Tray Setting]